Sen. Thelma Harper Urges Keeping New Visions Open
This is tragic and frightening.
When boys incarcerated at Woodland Hills Youth Development started a riot and tried to escape the
state-run facility in 2004, one of the first things several of them did was seek out their fellow female prisoners to have sex.
State Sen. Thelma Harper revealed details of that riot during a meeting of the Davidson County legislative delegation Monday, pushing fellow lawmakers to reconsider the prospective closing of the girls-only New Visions Youth Development Center for budget reasons
Harper worried that similar incidents would occur again if Nashville’s New Visions is closed and the approximately 20 girls housed there are moved to adjacent Woodland Hills.
“What they found in those closets and those crevices in the ground was boys and girls having sex,” Harper said. “The staff had to tear those young women to a hospital to have them tested to make some determinations. But that was not nearly all of it — this went on for a very, very long time.
Nate Rau has the whole story which State Rep. Brenda Gilmore is saying is a “tragedy in the making.”
New Visions Youth Development Center is the only all-girls juvenile delinquent facility in the state of Tennessee.
“Have sex” or rape? I'm guessing rape, since it was a riot and the girls had to be taken to the hospital, but it'd be nice if Harper used that word, to be clear. Also, did you catch Henry's nonsense at the end? Seriously, that about chilled my bones. I'd really like to see a direct quote on that, because how his statement comes across in the story is just frightening. I mean, it's like “well, some girls are just going to have to be in danger, if we can't figure out where to cut the money from.”
I agree wholeheartedly.